My point is more to consider if its something that no friend, longer term partner, family member, work colleague etc has ever made a comment on. There are lots of ways we can get feedback on behaviour, dates are only one of them.
Otara
:rolleyes: That’s a mighty broad brush you got there. Particularly since I’ve had way more experience with men not knowing what they want than women.
It’s not, in any way, a sex-linked trait. Some people of both sexes don’t know what they want. Some people of both sexes know exactly what they want. Some people of both sexes are terrified to get what they want, and will run when you give it to them.
Non-romantic-potential folk may not have any more clue than you do, however. I’ve actually found that to be true more often than not; if they like you enough to be friends with you and spend time with you, whatever is bothering your dates is obviously not bothering them.
The “dating” thing changes the interpersonal dynamic quite a bit.
Oh, I know what I want right now.
See, thinking that there’s such a thing as ‘women’ rather than a hugely varying range of individuals…for me, that right there would be an excellent reason to turn a guy down.
- twttwn
Who said anything about gentlemen?
That’s my whole point: what I’m saying isn’t about male-female interaction. Any human being I want to be around sees other human beings as individuals, not as sexes or races or whatever other easy-but-meaningless categories spring to mind.
Dan Savage had a question like this on his podcast this week; his caller asked why lately he can’t seem to get past one date and if he was “lucky,” his date would put him in the friend zone. He asked Dan what he was doing wrong.
Dan basically said: why the hell are you asking me, I don’t know you. Ask your friends, or politely ask one of your formerly-date-now-definitely-friends, for some advice on what you can do better. He related the tale of a fan who approached him in a coffeeshop with a similar question, why weren’t his dating site profiles getting him any hits? Dan pulled them up on his laptop, and said (heavily paraphrased) ‘WTF, every one of your pictures has you posing with a samurai sword, this makes you look like you’re clueless or a killer.’ Your friends can tell you that. A nice person who went on one date with you and is now strongly Just Your Friend may, too. Someone who you flirted with in a chat and then directed to your dating profile… yeah, they might wince a little bit if you want to know “What’s wrong?!” and all they’re hearing is the theme from Psycho.
I think the fear of most people who are asked “why didn’t this work out for you?” is if they answer, the asker will say they can fix that, when the damage is already done. If the date rambled on about his guns, or her history of nasty ex-boyfriends (gosh, all of them turned out to be raging assholes, what a coincidence), or his inconvenient breakouts of warts, or you sat through her meanness to everyone else including random passing women… well, you can’t put that genie back in the bottle for the person who dealt with it. They’ve seen something about you that they don’t like, and they might (with or without good reason) fear that they’ll hear, “OK, I’ll stop - let’s go on another date now, yay!”
Some things they wont, some things they probably will.
Thats where judgment comes in I guess. Someone on their first date ever - fair chance they wont know. Someone who has been in 3 previous relationships, the chances they’ve never had feedback on the issue in question are probably a fair bit lower.
Otara
This, a thousand times.
I’m a very straight forward person who will tell people what made me turn them down if they ask me and I don’t feel threatened by them. While a few of the men have been very polite, a few of them have been terribly insulted and reacted with hostility. That wouldn’t be enough to turn me off, after all, it’s only a few; however, a good percentage have taken it as an opportunity to argue for why we should continue to date. Because of such an overwhelmingly negative experience, I dislike being asked this question.
Definitely! You’re (or some are, anyway) looking at the surface and trying to deduce a logical answer. Taking it one step further, ASKING, is still looking for a surface answer that makes logical sense. And even listening to casual talk, is still just surface discussion. The surface is just the symptoms. The actual activity is going on much deeper, and much more confused. There is where you have to probe if you want real answers. The qualifiers that color the simple stuff. Otherwise, dating would become totally boring since everyone could read the same primer, Dick & Jane Go Dating. (Although I’ll admit that Spot and Puff would add some bizarre aspects to it.) Essentially, you have to learn how to see what they don’t even see in themselves. Since they don’t know, you won’t find out by asking. It ain’t easy. But once you do learn how, you’ll be able to… pardon the blunt assessment, ladies… Play them like a fiddle.
And no, I’m not being sexist. While I state that women don’t know what they want, it’s every bit as true for men. In fact, women who learn to see below the surface of men can play them like a fiddle, too. The penultimate is when each can find the other, play each other like a fiddle, both of them knowing their being played, and enjoying it to the max. Then you need a crowbar to pry them apart.
But for the uninitiated, I offer this to stew on… Accept it or reject it as you choose. What fascinates a person the most is also what a person fears the most. And vice versa.
So why didn’t you go with the less antagonistic word “people” in your statement if you feel it’s as true of men as women?
Why? What does it matter?
Because I’m talking from my perspective as a guy, about what I’ve learned about women. Inclusion of some variables is NOT an exclusion of others. As there was no intent of antagonism in my statements, the only presence of such is what some readers may wish to see.
“If you take things personally, you will be offended for the rest of your life.” ~ Deepak Chopra
This is a good way of putting it! My posts aren’t meant to be offensive, I’m not making a judgement call saying “women are stupid because they don’t know what they want”. I’m just saying people generally aren’t aware of what makes them tick and the denial of that only compounds it (“marketing tactics would NEVER work on ME, I’m too smart for that!!” as they drink a Pepsi and eat some Doritos).
I think the difference between men and women, in relation to this thread, is that when a man says “I want a chick with big tits”, he means he wants a chick with big tits, if you put on a push-up bra he’s happy. When a man says “I want an intelligent woman”, he means he wants an intelligent woman, if you’ve read a book he’s happy.
Whereas when a woman says “I want a guy who treats me nice”, she means “I want a guy who’s nice to me when I deserve it but will call me out on being silly if I’m acting up, because if he can’t even stand up to ME how am I supposed to respect him and be able to rely on him to stand up to other people when I need him to?” And when a woman says “I want a guy who understands I’m a unique individual with my own thoughts and feelings” she means “I want a guy who gets that I’m not some cookie-cutter sheep and I want him to appreciate me for my unique qualities, but at the same time not worship me too much because I’m not perfect and I want him to understand that so I don’t have to live up to some label he’s put on me (see the creepy “Dear Woman” thread for examples of how turned off everyone is by guys who overly worship women)”
Like with guys, it tends to be fairly straightforward…but with women there’s often a lot of nuances and grey areas and a balance of “do this a lot, but not TOO much”, and often what they actually emotionally respond to is the complete 180 opposite of what their logical side thinks they respond to. I figure this stems from society encouraging the “it’s a woman’s perogative to be completely random as fuck, that’s what makes us special” notion and simultaneously shaming them for daring to forwardly express their interest in someone else.
That’s not to say there aren’t guys out there that don’t know what they want, or that there aren’t women who legitimately know themselves, but I’m going with generalizations here and those people tend to be a minority.
- TWTTWN
Ya, that’s why when people give me shit for studying pickup they go “pfft you’re just having shallow surface interactions with everyone, you’re not REALLY getting to know them, you can’t get to know them THAT quickly!” and it’s like no, YOU can’t get to know them that quickly. I’ve picked up a set of skills that allow me to get to know someone better than their friends know them, and often even better than they know themselves.
I apply it to pickup/women, but like you say, it applies to men as well. It’s blatantly obvious to me, like a flashing neon sign, when a guy is chatting with me and he’s coming from a place of insecurity/neediness and seeking my approval, or when he’s coming from a place of high value and just spreading good vibes. Or when a guy is talking about his new car, whether he’s doing it to try to brag or impress people, or whether he’s doing it because he’s legitimately happy about having it. Or if a guy asks why a girl won’t come out with him, whether he’s legitimately curious so he can improve himself, or whether he’s looking to just brow-beat her. Girls develop this skill too, because they’re presented with far more social interaction than the average guy is (in terms of being hounded by men approaching them wanting to “get” something from them), but usually they chalk it up to a magical concept like female intuition, aura, or vibes.
But those guys will have no idea, as they’re speaking, that they’re doing it from a place of seeking approval or that deep down they view themselves as low-value. So I know them better than they know themselves. I might not know their age or what they do for a living or what they think of the local sports team, but I know them to their core as people.
- TWTTWN
Incidentally, to answer the OP’s actual question, I would just tell them to read this:
It’s a list of 25 common mistakes newbie PUAs make. Most people will be able to remember times they’ve done or seen these things done in an interaction that went bad (interaction with your boss where you didn’t get a raise, girl turning you down for a date, someone in your social circle acting too try-hard or obnoxious, a guy creeping you out or boring you, why asking “why don’t you want to go out with me??” comes off bad, being picked on, etc.).
It’s written by Tyler Durden, the “bad guy” from the book The Game and was written back before The Game came out when this stuff was first being tackled. Whether the guy’s a good person or not as a human being, the observations he made and experiments he did were fucking brilliant.
I’d say the list can apply to both genders, but men tend to let women make a lot more mistakes than women do. A guy on a date will be like “Oh you work at McDonald’s, and you live at home with your parents, and you don’t have a car, and you’re kind of a little bit crazy? Aw that’s cute, let’s still have sex!” but a super-hot girl on a date will be like “You didn’t offer to pay for dinner? You can leave now.”
- TWTTWN
I thought you said you were going to answer the OP’s actual question. The question was about being asked out and then being asked why you said no.
You accidentally posted a satirical take on some pop-psych silliness from the Victorian era with the genders reversed.
That link was a very sad read.
Otara
Yes, I would point them to that list or list off the stuff they’re doing wrong from said list. I thought that was clear when I said “I would just tell them to read this”.
The list is accurate and tested very thoroughly. Most akward people you know probably do a solid 10-15 of those 25 things if you look at them objectively. People who are just a little off (“they’re nice or mean well BUT…”) do maybe 1-5 of them and super hopeless cases will do 20-25
- TWTTWN
Never been in the situation, on either side, but I’ve been thinking. Whenever I don’t like someone, it’s never because of one thing. Or even major things. Usually it’s a lot of really nitpicky things that would seem ridiculous when laid out.
Maybe I thought the first date was great because I was too nervous to notice that you were kinda rude to the waitstaff or that you use million dollar words incorrectly, in an obvious attempt to sound intelligent. Maybe I do notice these little things and more on the second and third dates, though. So when I get aproached for the fourth date, I just don’t want to commit anymore because I know I’ll just be tallying more faults and not enjoying the experience. If I get cornered for an exit interview, is the person expecting me to list all those little things? I’m just thinking it will either start an argument (“I wasn’t rude to that waitress! She was just incompetent!”) or it will lead to a sad-sack me-so-sorry act (“I know I can be negative sometimes. It’s a personality flaw that I’ve been working on, but I can never seem to really lick. I’m so sorry! Really, I’ll try harder!”) If my intent is to limit my contact with a person, I don’t need either of these situations. I don’t need to second-guess my gut feelings or feel guilty either, and it’s wrong for a person to put someone in this position. Even if they are doing it unintentionally.
Yeah, some people are just too damn picky. But you’re not going to convince them to be less picky by interrogating them.